[Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]] larryccf:
you may be right, info does have value and who's not going to collect on that value, ie sell that info

but i don't think nokia is in the position to do with that info what google can. What i think a lot of folks are overlooking, it's not just the collection of info, but who's collecting it and how it's managed, sorted & used. Years ago, a retired canadian intelligence analyst, appearing on 60 Minutes, who had worked in the counterpart to the US's NSA telecommunications eavesdropping program (not sure, but believe it was called Echlon) revealed how their canadian system had logged someone in as a possible terrorist, simply because in a phone conversation to a friend, in describing the school play her son had just appeared in, indicated he'd just "bombed" in the play. the key word was bomb. And all because she had used that one word, she was logged into a list of "possible" terrorists. Under that standard, 92% of the population is on some list somewhere.

I have to wonder, every time i travel, and get selected for the hand / wand pat down /search, whether it's not because of an poor choice in words used in a telephone conversation.

in google voice, google has demonstrated the incredible (to me, a 61 yr old dinosaur) ability to harvest conversations, transcribing speech to text.

even following the "don't do / say anything your grandmother wouldn't approve" rule, what happens when in voice conversations via google voice, you mention that your aunt mable has liver cancer, and then you, trying to help her understand her meds and their side effects, google the different medications.

then, because of that voice conversation (and others) and the google searches you did trying to help her, you get lumped into a group of potential / possible cancer target marketing group, and that also finds it's way into your permanent "history" and ends up in the report to your future employer (who's signed up with google for background data on you), and you're termed a possible health insurance risk and don't get the job. and you don't even know why

in place of cancer and cancer meds, substitute smoking aids, weight management aids, you name it - you'll get the picture.

remember, this is the google that was harvesting wifi network info with those street view cars mapping streets around the world, claiming they weren't even aware their equipment was recording / identifying wifi networks and private data. Incredibly, if we're to believe them, an engineer had played with the prospect and inadvertantly left the software script on the master file used for every car, and nobody realized it was there, AND THAT IT WAS ACTIVE

then factor in that it was just reported in the news, that google had signed a major contract with either the NSA or CIA, to assemble / provide information. http://gcn.com/articles/2010/02/08/cybereye-google-nsa.aspx

and http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.co...ma/2010/02/dubious-nsa-explanations-for-d.php .

there's a reason it's called privacy. The younger generations' readiness to give anyone, complete strangers, full trust and confidence i simply find astonishing. Not trying to start a flame war here, but just "because someone's paranoid, is not proof they're not being watched"

this may be a fred flintstone approach, but years ago, fearing snail mail spam mail, every computer, every online account, i've always used a ficticious name thinking if spam mail came in addressed to that name, i'd know automatically not to bother opening it (it wasn't that long ago that about 20% of my trash was spam mail). Now i do it based on the concerns discussed by some in this thread.

FWIW

quantumstate - there is some hope for you - see link - apparently google didn't appreciate Cyanogen Android modder opening up the code on google maps and other google apps - so he made them removeable from android

if flashing is as easy as the rooting i did the other nite, it shouldn't be that hard to flash his rom

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/cyanogen-android-rom-modder-bends-to-googles-will-but-does-not/